Rishi’s stamp duty gimmick did little but help greedy builders

The Hundred — some sort of pimped-up cricket tournament, I gather — passed me by entirely, but I’ve been admiring the spin bowling of the Clayton, Dubilier & Rice team in another big contest, namely the bid battle for Morrisons. When CD&R made its initial 230p per share offer in June, there was much talk of the ruthless financial wizardry this New York private equity firm might apply to the supermarket group to extract maximum profit within a short timescale. But there was no more than a passing mention of the role as CD&R’s adviser of the former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy.

Now the offer has been raised to 285p — capping another US bidder, Fortress — while the script has been rewritten to present CD&R’s approach as a personal mission on Leahy’s part to protect the legacy of his hero, the late Sir Ken Morrison, who built the eponymous family business into a nationwide chain.